It is desirable that absorbent articles such as diapers and incontinence guards provide a close and comfortable fit about the wearer during use and absorb bodily exudates, such as urine and/or faeces. Typically, conventional diapers have a front waist portion and a back waist portion which are releasably connected about the waist/hips of the wearer during use by conventional fasteners such as adhesive tape fasteners or hook and loop type fasteners. For example, the conventional fasteners have typically included a pair of fastening tabs, such as e.g. adhesive tape tabs, located on the outermost corners of the diaper in the back waist portion of the diaper and a complimentary fastener, such as a reception panel, located on the front waist portion. Such fastening tabs are generally manufactured separately from the articles to which they are attached. Therefore, the fastening tabs affixed to outermost corners of the diaper in the back waist portion, in a manner and with a strength sufficient to resist the forces which arise during use of the article.
A number of concepts have been introduced in the art for permanent fastening of fastening tabs to the outermost corners of the diaper such as e.g. mechanical, adhesive or ultrasonic bonding or combinations thereof.
For example, US 2007/0032766 discloses mechanical bonds to join a front side panel and a rear side panel or to join other substrates, layers and/or elements of the absorbent article, which in addition results in informational indicia.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,681,306 disclose permanent adhesive bonding between a tape tab and backsheet of the diaper.
One type of laminate produced by Koester GmbH (FlexEar PA 150 V2 EMB1) is embossed to form a number of rhomboids. This laminate may be used as elastic side panels, i.e. outermost corners of the diaper, onto which fastening tabs have been fastened.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,735, a diaper comprising a stress beam section is disclosed, which may be an integral part of the side panel of the diaper or separately fastened. The section is the connection between the fastening tab and the side panel and can disperse the fastening forces across the side panel. The stress beam section may be densified or embossed to provide reliable securement.
The systems mentioned above have, however, a number of shortcomings, one of which is that the fastening tabs may come off from the outermost corners of the diaper due to the forces arising during use of the article. More specifically, the outermost corners of the diaper usually are a laminate with nonwoven on the outside surface and consequently it is difficult to get good adhesion because fibres in the nonwoven are pulled out by the adhesive between the fastening tab and the diaper or between the fastening tab and the elastic side panel.
Therefore, there remains a need for an absorbent article with improved strength and prolonged durability of the fastening between the outermost corners of the diaper and the fastening tabs of the fastening system.